


Wisdom

by cuttothequickk



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cold Weather, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Lovers, First Time, Fluff, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Non-Explicit Sex, Scarves, Showers, Slash, Sorry Not Sorry, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 11:30:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13433814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuttothequickk/pseuds/cuttothequickk
Summary: The last train from Kita-Ikebukuro to Shinjuku leaves the station 12:19 a.m. Izaya sprints up to the station at 12:21. Japanese trains are nothing if not punctual.orIzaya tries to walk home late at night, and Shizuo takes him in from the cold.





	Wisdom

The last train from Kita-Ikebukuro to Shinjuku leaves the station 12:19 a.m. Izaya sprints up to the station at 12:21. Japanese trains are nothing if not punctual.

Izaya doesn’t need to check the timetable to know that the first train doesn’t leave until 5:05 a.m. The station is cold, the attendants waving everyone out for the night; Izaya is out of luck, and he curses himself for letting his dinner companion talk him into that last bottle of sake, even if it had ended in Izaya getting the information he needed. He could’ve gotten it faster, Izaya thinks—he had known from the minute he had met the middle-aged businessman that the guy wanted to fuck him, and Izaya probably could’ve gotten what he wanted for the price of a blowjob in the bathroom, but Izaya isn’t in the business of prostitution. He’d had no interest whatsoever in putting his mouth anywhere near, well, any part of his companion, and he doesn’t regret not having traded sex for info even if it means he’s now missed the last train.

Still. The walk from Kita-Ikebukuro to Shinjuku is long, even if Izaya runs. He’s got 300 yen in his pocket after forking over the rest of his cash during an earlier meeting that had ended in unforeseen and expensive circumstances. His ATM card is at home. His phone is dying because he’s been on it all day dealing with business. His coat is warm, but he doesn’t have gloves. He’s a little bit drunk.

He could go to a convenience store and have them call him a taxi, see if the driver will let him pay when they get back to his apartment. He could have the driver take him to Shinra’s and ask the good doctor to pay for the cab for him. Hell, he could probably call Shiki and ask him to send a car.

But. He’s a little bit drunk, the evening’s sake making the mid-January temperature feel warmer than it is and the distance between Kita-Ikebukuro and Shinjuku seem shorter than it will be. Getting a taxi seems like too much of a hassle; so does talking to Shinra or Shiki. Izaya checks the battery left in his phone (six percent), and with artificial heat warming his veins, he starts the long walk home, not drunk enough to stumble but tipsy enough to sway a little.

It starts sleeting just before he gets to Ikebukuro proper. It’s not quite cold enough for snow yet, but Izaya can feel that thick sort of humid chill that always tinges the air before a heavy snow, the city not quite dark because of the clouds blanketing the sky. There are little pinpricks of precipitation irritating Izaya’s cheeks and the back of his neck, and he flips his hood up and moves faster, pulling his phone out of his pocket to check the time. It’s nearing 1:00 a.m., and his phone is at three percent. The cold bites at his fingers, and he shoves his phone back into his pocket.

The alcohol wears off faster than Izaya wishes it would, the buzz fading away so that Izaya is just cold. His hands are going numb in his pockets, and he has to clench his jaw against the chatter of his teeth. The temperature keeps dropping, the sleet turning heavy and thick with ice. It’s not quite hail, but it’s still not quite snow.

He’s not sure when the cold goes from moderately annoying to bone-deep and chilling. It’s past 1:00 a.m. now, and Izaya has just enough phone battery left to check how long it’s going to take him to get to Shinjuku—about 55 minutes—before his phone goes black and doesn’t light up again, no matter how many times he presses the home button.

He walks for ten more minutes, hurrying along and visualizing the map in his head to track his progress, but it’s cold. It’s really cold. The sleet is biting through his coat and jeans, his shoes a little wet inside like the soles are leaking. His fingers are numb despite the protection of his pockets, and he can’t feel his toes. His chest hurts with every freezing inhale he takes, and he’s starting to think he should’ve just called Shiki as soon as he missed the last train. His legs are stiff with the cold, and he’s trembling hard as he ducks his head and walks faster, but he doesn’t stop.

Izaya is so lost in keeping his head down and trying to ignore the overwhelming cold that he doesn’t notice the person turning the corner at the exact moment he does. Izaya slams hard into something so solid it could be a brick wall, slipping on the almost-ice sticking slick on the ground for a startling second before strong arms are pulling him in with no grace whatsoever, the downward momentum stopped as Izaya’s face is shoved unceremoniously into someone’s solid abdomen.

“Whoa, sorry,” a man’s voice says, familiar in cadence but somehow unidentifiable. “Are you okay?”

Izaya studies his feet to find a non-slick patch of ground as he pulls away from the warmth of the other man’s chest.

“I’m fine,” Izaya says, tongue a little sticky with dehydration from the sake at dinner. He bows as is customary, and only then does he step back and look up at the tall figure before him.

It’s dark, but the blonde hair and sharp jaw give away the identity of the man in an instant. “Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, muscles tensing on the instinct to turn and run. He vaguely realizes he hadn’t recognized the voice because he only ever hears Shizuo’s voice clipped and angry on yells during their chases. He’d forgotten how deep and melodic it is.

“Izaya-kun,” Shizuo says. His cheeks are red, but he doesn’t look nearly as cold as Izaya feels. His blonde hair is tucked into a blue beanie, the long strands sticking out around his face at an angle that sharpens his cheekbones and emphasizes the slant of his eyes. He really has movie star good looks, Izaya thinks. As beautiful as Kasuka, if a bit older and less innocent-looking. It’s ironic, Izaya thinks, because he’s sure Kasuka is actually the far more experienced of the two when it comes to most things, despite Shizuo’s delinquent appearance.

Izaya swallows. He doesn’t feel drunk anymore, but he can tell his coordination is still a little off, and with the sleet falling hard around them, he’s hoping Shizuo isn’t going to start a fight.

“Shizuo,” he says, voice soft, “It’s cold and I swear I’m just going home. Just—there’s no one around to see if you just let me go.”

Shizuo’s expression doesn’t change.

Izaya swallows, shivers wracking his frame. He shoves his hands further into his pockets as if it will make a difference. “Please,” he says, the cold and the lingering effects of the alcohol turning him honest and pleading. “Just—I want to get home,” he says, and realizes in a burst of emotion how desperately he wants to be warm. He thinks of home, and for a split second it’s not his Shinjuku penthouse he’s thinking of, but rather the memory of a kotatsu in his parents’ living room, his twin sisters still unborn, and Izaya surrounded by the comforting warmth of a family home before his parents had started working more and more until they forgot about Izaya entirely.

Izaya shoves the memory aside and focuses on what’s in front of him.

When Shizuo finally moves, it’s only to regard his watch, his eyes as icy as the weather when he looks back up at Izaya. “It’s after 1:00. What are you doing out at this hour?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Izaya shoots back, tongue thick and clumsy so he’s suddenly hyperaware of his mouth. Have his teeth always been this sharp?

Shizuo’s jaw clenches just enough for Izaya to catch the motion, but his eyes just keep blinking away the seconds. He’s calmer than Izaya has perhaps ever seen him. They’re standing close enough together that Izaya feels small in comparison to Shizuo’s taller, more solid build.

“Shizuo,” Izaya says, stepping carefully in the direction he needs to go, almost like he’s trying not to startle a wild animal. “I wasn’t doing anything. I wasn’t even in Ikebukuro tonight. Well, Kita-Ikebukuro, but—I just want to get home,” he emphasizes again, taking another step out towards the street.

Izaya freezes when Shizuo moves, but he’s only adjusting the blue scarf that matches his hat, the fabric looking weighty and soft in his gloved hands even if it’s got crystals of ice glistening across the exposed edges. He looks like he wants to say something, his mouth moving awkwardly until he just bites his lip and settles back on his heels. Izaya narrows his eyes.

“Nice scarf,” he says, and Shizuo scoffs.

“Where’s your scarf, Izaya? Hat? Do you even have gloves?” He asks, gesturing at Izaya’s hands, which haven’t left his pockets since the last time he checked his phone, before he ran into Shizuo.

Izaya tosses his head back in an arrogant little flick of hair, but his hood almost falls down and he has to dart his hand up to snatch it back over his hair, his fingers exposed to the freezing air and giving him away. “My coat is the only thing I need,” Izaya manages, but Shizuo only stares at him.

“Whatever,” he says, deadpan. He’s still just standing there, and for once in his life Izaya actually feels kind of stumped by the situation he’s found himself in. He takes another slow step towards the street, praying Shizuo won’t notice or at least won’t care.

When Shizuo doesn’t react to Izaya’s pathetically slow attempt at fleeing for a good ten seconds, Izaya finally snaps. “Okay, well, bye, Shizuo,” he says, mindless of his use of Shizuo’s real name and trying to ignore the way sleety-wet snowflakes stick in Shizuo’s hair and eyelashes. He turns enough to take a step into the street but not enough to put Shizuo entirely behind him, just in case, and then there’s a roar and a loud splash, and a hand is yanking him backwards so hard he stumbles along the slippery sidewalk, his feet going out from under him for the second time in ten minutes. This time no one catches him, though; there’s just a shocked little gasp of his name, and then he’s hitting the ground hard with his hip, the impact jarring his wrists as he tries to cushion himself and instead just falls.

“Shit, Izaya, are you okay?” Shizuo asks, rushing to kneel next to him. Izaya’s clothes are soaking wet, and there’s water in his eyes, and he has to splutter slush away from his lips as he pushes himself off the ground to see a truck zooming away down the street, the driver evidently unaware of the disaster that had been narrowly avoided.

Izaya wipes his face with a wet sleeve and frowns. His hip is throbbing, his hands a little scraped up on the bottoms of his palms. He’s soaking wet from the slush layered thick across the ground, and he’s even colder now. He sighs hard and feels tears burning at the back of his eyes, his cheeks so frozen they almost feel hot. “Ugh,” he says. That’s really all he can say without bursting out into childish tears.

“Well, now you definitely need a scarf and some gloves,” Shizuo says. His black pea coat is covered in slush now too, so he must’ve gotten splashed by the truck’s tires in the puddles when he yanked Izaya out of the street. He’s looking at Izaya kind of strangely again, like he wants to say something but can’t, and Izaya licks his lips and regrets it when they only feel colder.

“Come on,” Shizuo says when it becomes clear that Izaya isn’t going to say anything. “My apartment isn’t that far from here.” His words are careful, and now he’s the one who’s acting like he’s trying not to scare a wild animal. Izaya tries to say something and can’t.

Izaya struggles to his feet with Shizuo’s help, his hip throbbing so hard he actually kind of limps. Shizuo notices and offers his arm in support, and Izaya takes it, albeit more for the warmth than for the crutch it provides. “Can I use your phone?” Izaya asks as Shizuo leads him off down the street, a little confused about what’s happening.

“Why?”

“So I can call a taxi,” he says, and Shizuo looks more confused.

“How are you going to pay?”

It’s Izaya’s turn to look confused. Actually, he’s a little confused about why he’s just letting Shizuo lead him along like this, but he doesn’t say anything about that. “How—I didn’t say anything about not having money, did I?” Did he? Did he say something and somehow forget?

Shizuo stops to take off his scarf and wrap it around Izaya’s neck. The warmth instantly returns some clarity to his pain- and cold-hazed mind. “No,” Shizuo says, “But you were walking home, so you obviously missed last train, and if you could have called a cab then you would’ve, so your phone must be dead or broken or something. And still, you could have gone to a Lawson or 7-Eleven or something and had them call you a taxi, but you didn’t, so there’s some other reason you can’t take one. Money just seemed like the most likely explanation.”

Izaya swallows. Shizuo is quicker on the uptake than he lets on.

In the time it’s taken for Shizuo to give that speech, they’ve reached his apartment building, and Shizuo is tugging Izaya up to the second floor and corralling him into a tiny box of an apartment. It’s nice to be out of the sleet even if it’s not particularly warm inside, at least not in the area that holds the bathroom and the kitchen. Izaya slips out of his shoes mechanically and doesn’t protest when Shizuo unwinds his scarf from around Izaya’s neck. It’s not as if Izaya has any jurisdiction over it.

“Come on. You can shower, but let me make sure the fan is on or else the steam will make the fire alarm go off,” Shizuo says, taking off his gloves and hanging his coat on a hook by the door. He flips on a couple of lights and opens the door into the narrow bedroom. Izaya sees him pull off his hat and click a remote at the heating unit on the wall across from the lofted futon. It takes a good minute before the heater seems to do anything, but Izaya figures everything is a little bit wonky in an apartment as cheap as this one.

Still. It’s better than being out in the snow, and it feels inexplicably homey. The desk is cluttered with the random sorts of items that just seem to collect without anyone’s actual intention, and there are pictures taped up on the walls depicting Shizuo with Kasuka, Celty and Shinra, a couple that must be Shizuo’s parents, even Kadota and Erika. Izaya sighs. His apartment is nothing like this place, and the knowledge makes Izaya feel even colder.

“You just going to stand there?” Shizuo asks, eyeing Izaya as he clicks on the fan in the Japanese-style shower. He flicks off the light in the kitchen, leaving them in the shadows of the shower light and the bedroom light. Izaya gives him a weird look, and Shizuo looks sheepish as he rubs the back of his neck. “You can’t run the bathroom fan and the stove and the lights all at the same time or it trips the breaker,” he says. “But I figured you might want something warm to eat when you get out of the shower, so…go ahead. I’ll make something,” he says, gesturing at the shower. Izaya startles and nods, feeling the tail end of his buzz flare up now that he’s not so bitterly cold.

He steps into the shower unit in his socks before he starts stripping; it’s awkward not having a Western-style bathroom like the one at his apartment, where he would be able to close the door to the bathroom and strip and then get in the shower, but Shizuo’s tiny shower unit is just its own room off the tiny kitchen hallway. Izaya can either strip in the hallway where Shizuo would be able to see him from his place in the kitchen, or he can do it like this. He throws the clothes onto the floor outside the folding panel door of the shower and finally turns on the water.

It’s unbearably cold for a few seconds before it gets unbearably hot, and Izaya practically leaps out of the stream of water to escape the burn as he frantically twists the cold water tap, hoping for a more reasonable temperature. He wants to be angry at Shizuo for forgetting to mention that, but the water feels so good once it’s warm that he honestly doesn’t care. He stands under the water for a few minutes just soaking in the warmth before he wonders whether he’s allowed to use Shizuo’s shampoo, and then he just decides not to, because his head is starting to clear now that he’s not so desperate for relief from the cold, and he thinks he should probably hurry up so he can leave. He doesn’t use the soap, because that seems even weirder than using the shampoo, and he shuts off the water as quickly as he can bear to lose the warmth cascading around him, his fingers and toes tingling pleasantly with warmth now instead of painfully with cold. He still feels that lingering bone-deep chill, but at least his limbs are in working order.

“Izaya?” Shizuo asks, sticking his head around the corner of the kitchen to look over as Izaya pokes his head out of the half-open shower door. Shizuo’s cheeks are still red from the cold, and Izaya realizes how rude he’s been, not even offering Shizuo the option to shower before him. “That was quick, did you even wash your hair? Sorry, I didn’t get a chance to grab you any clothes or a towel or anything. I was heating up some instant curry, if that’s okay. My rice cooker is broken, so I’m having to make the rice on the stove…” He trails off into awkward silence, and Izaya just stares.

“I wasn’t sure if you would let me use your shampoo,” Izaya says, unable to think of anything better. His hip is aching from the way he’s leaning out of the shower door, and he looks down for a second and sees that it’s already blooming angry blue and purple all across the side of his body.

“Jesus, that looks like it hurts,” Shizuo says, and Izaya realizes he’s leaning far enough out of the shower that the edge of his hipbone is on full display. He shifts back into the shower in an instant, ducking his head, embarrassed. He tilts his head back out, a little more careful now, and Shizuo shakes hair out of his face, some emotion widening his eyes a little and turning his mouth soft at the corners. “Izaya,” Shizuo instructs, voice deep, “Turn the water back on and wash your hair, and then when you’re done with that I’ll give you a towel and some sweats to change into, okay? The curry should be done by then, too.”

Izaya can only blink and offer a quiet noise of assent. He shuts the door to the shower again and turns the water back on, and then he uses the shampoo and realizes he’s caught whiffs of its clean citrus scent before during some of their chases, when the wind was blowing just right. He had always written it off as something ordinary, a common brand of laundry detergent or something—not some pleasant and light scent coming from Shizuo. He massages the gel into his hair and then rinses it out, the suds tracing ticklish paths down his body. He still doesn’t use the soap.

By the time he’s done, there’s a towel and some sweats outside the door as promised. The door to the bedroom is closed and Shizuo is nowhere to be seen, so Izaya assumes he must be trying to give Izaya the privacy to change without having to stand on the wet floor of the shower to do it. He pulls on the too-big boxers and the too-big sweats, rolling down the waistband of the sweats in the hopes of holding up both articles of clothing. It works pretty well, and Izaya tugs the soft hoodie Shizuo’s left him over his head and feels small and cozy and vulnerable in his worst enemy’s clothes, and he thinks back and finds that he can’t remember ever having felt this comfortable before in his entire life. Not even under the kotatsu in his parents’ house.

It’s probably just the relief of being out of the cold.

Izaya walks through the kitchen towards the bedroom door, and the stove is turned off now, some dishes piled in the tiny sink, so Shizuo must be finished making the instant curry. Izaya takes a breath and feels like he might vibrate out of his skin with nerves as he pushes the door open, but at least he’s not trembling with cold anymore. He enters the room and shuts the door to keep the heat in, and then he turns and feels all the air rush out of his lungs at the sight before him.

The overhead light is turned off in favor of a reading lamp next to the bed, which paints the room in a warm orange glow. Shizuo is sitting back against the wall behind the futon, clad only in a thin white T-shirt and plaid pajama pants, no underwear on if the soft slouch of the pants around his hips is anything to go by. He’s holding a bowl filled with rice and instant butter curry, a pair of cheap chopsticks resting lightly between his fingers.

“Did you get those at the 100 yen shop?” Izaya blurts out, looking pointedly at the chopsticks. Shizuo laughs.

“Yeah, actually,” he says, grinning at Izaya with a smile that Izaya has never seen before. “Be glad I’m not just reusing the ones you get with bento from 7-Eleven—you know, the cheap little wood ones.”

Izaya raises an eyebrow. “Do you do that frequently? Reuse disposable 7-Eleven chopsticks?”

Shizuo bites his bottom lip. It’s a good look. “Go look in the little basket over by the sink,” he says. “Half the chopsticks in there are recycled from 7-Eleven.”

Izaya shakes his head. “No. It’s cold out there,” he says, gesturing towards the door, and Shizuo chuckles.

“Come on, then, eat this curry. It’s actually good,” Shizuo says, pulling his legs up towards his chest so that Izaya can see another bowl of curry and rice sitting carefully on the futon. He looks around for a table and furrows his brow when there isn’t one.

“You don’t have a table?” Izaya asks, and Shizuo blushes.

“It folds down into the wall, see?” Shizuo points at a wooden panel against the wall across from the futon, and Izaya raises both eyebrows.

“You don’t use your table?”

Shizuo shakes his head. “Nah, I just eat in bed. Come on, I know you know how to use chopsticks. Probably better than me. You’re not gonna spill all over my duvet, are you?”

Izaya hesitates for a moment and then shakes his head, climbing up onto the awkwardly tall loft space and picking up the bowl and the cheap chopsticks. There’s hardly any weight to them at all, just as Izaya has expected, but he doesn’t say anything as he takes a bite. Shizuo is right. The curry is good.

They eat in silence for a good long while, until the questions tumbling around in Izaya’s head get the better of him and he sits up a little straighter, his bowl held safely in his lap as he stares at Shizuo across from him on the bed. “Why are you doing this?”

Shizuo studies him again, that same look on his face like he can’t quite articulate what he wants to say. But this time he doesn’t look as lost as he had before; no, now he’s just considering. He looks so mature, all of a sudden, less like the kid Izaya kind of still sees him as—sees them both as—and Izaya is struck by how much they’ve grown up in the years they’ve known each other.

“Honestly?” Shizuo asks, quiet.

Izaya nods. “Yes,” he says. It’s not quite a please, but Shizuo swallows as he hears the intonation.

Shizuo looks down at the remains of his curry as he speaks. “At first I kind of thought you were one of your sisters. Actually, for a second, you reminded me of Kasuka. You looked so cold, and so small. It was kind of disorienting.”

Izaya studies Shizuo hard, eyes narrowed and lips tense on—something. “So you decided to just take me home with you?”

Shizuo shrugs. His shoulders are broad and well-muscled against his beige pillowcase. “I just thought—it could have been anyone. It could have been Celty, or it could have been Shinra, or it could have been Mairu or Kururi, or it could have been Kasuka. And I never would’ve hesitated to help them. It’s cold as fuck outside. You wouldn’t have made it all the way back to Shinjuku, not without frostbite, or else having to go into a convenience store to awkwardly walk around until they kicked you out for loitering. I just thought—so what, it’s Izaya. He needs me right now as much as anyone else would. So…I don’t know. I just felt like I had to help you.”

Something in Izaya twists almost like jealousy. Like he’s angry about the reminder that Shizuo has all these people he cares about, and that Izaya is only cared about as some weird extension of that.

“And,” Shizuo goes on, looking up at Izaya finally, as if this part can’t be said without the vulnerability of eye contact, “When I realized it was you, you just…you looked like you did in high school. You still kind of do, because those clothes are so big,” he says. “It reminded me of the past. Made me nostalgic, or something. God, we’re almost 25, and it’s like—we’ve known each other for ten years. I say we’re almost 25 and I’m reminded that we’re—we’re a ‘we’. We always kind of have been. Shizuo-and-Izaya. The talk of the school. The talk of the town.”

“The talk of Tokyo,” Izaya says, voice soft on emotion he can’t place. Shizuo’s words are hitting him hard, like the pleasant heat of the shower fighting off the chill from earlier, but also like the shock of hitting his hip on the pavement when Shizuo had pulled him out of the way of the truck. It hurts, but it’s a good hurt, the kind that feels like losing one home but finding another, the uncanny feeling that somehow the past and the future have collided to create some intransient present. Time doesn’t exist. Past and future are one. In everything, its opposite.

In Shizuo and Izaya, too. They are the same as they were, and yet they are not.

Izaya swallows and studies Shizuo: the curve of his neck, the soft waves of his bleached out hair, the line of his jaw. Izaya feels so young and so old at once, like the jaded nonbeliever of ten years earlier had to grow up in order to find the innocence of faith. Everything feels like it’s the opposite of how it should be, and it’s heady and fantastical to set his curry on the shelf above the bed so he can focus only on Shizuo, an icon of his past and yet an emblem of his future. They have always revolved around each other, Izaya thinks, and they always will.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says. He sets down his curry and leans forward, and every inch he travels twists reality into greater and greater distortion, and then Izaya is tilting forward at the same time, the inch he moves giving everything away. Shizuo’s hands barely have time to fit around Izaya’s ribs before Izaya is pressing clumsy lips to Shizuo’s, his whole body trembling now with too much feeling, their mouths slotting together and soft lips opening like blossoming flowers. Izaya hears himself whimpering as he pushes up onto his knees to press Shizuo back against the pillows, their legs tangling close so Izaya’s knee lands firm against the apex of Shizuo’s thighs. Shizuo is groaning and pulling him closer, and then the world is spinning as Shizuo rolls Izaya beneath him. They bang into the wall with a hollow thud, and Shizuo pulls away not to laugh but to smile, and Izaya feels giddy with elation and arousal, the way he thinks this would have been if they had done this in high school. It feels strange to feel so young again, and yet to feel so powerful. They’re adults. They’re allowed to just do this.

It’s shocking to Izaya how comfortable he feels, giving himself up like this to someone he’s proudly claimed as his most hated enemy for so long. And yet, there’s something to be said for keeping friends close and enemies closer, because Izaya realizes that he knows Shizuo as intimately as he knows himself for how long they’ve been in orbit around each other, and that all of his reasonably diverse sexual experience up to this point is nothing in the face of Shizuo’s tanned hands against the skin of his stomach, his thighs, his ribcage. Shizuo is just as breathless with it as Izaya is, and he presses soft kisses along Izaya’s collarbones and undresses him with the kind of care reserved for high school sweethearts, the ones who find each other early and never love anyone else. It’s kind of funny, Izaya thinks as he’s tugged under the blankets: in some wild and unbearably tragic way, he and Shizuo are really not that different from high school sweethearts themselves.

 

 

 

 

It is bliss to wake up too hot the following morning. The futon is tiny, and Izaya is pressed between Shizuo and the wall, a heavy arm across his chest, and Shizuo’s nose pressed soft against the nape of Izaya’s neck. Their legs are sticky with sweat and tangled together, and half the blankets have been kicked off in an apparent joint effort to cool down without pulling away from each other.

He turns in Shizuo’s arms and watches the soft rise and fall of his chest, the halo of yellow hair against a beige pillowcase, the flutter of movement behind paper-thin eyelids that says Shizuo is dreaming. Izaya feels his heart pound hard at the intimacy of it and wishes for Shizuo to be dreaming of him.

After a few minutes of gentle half-dozing, Izaya hears a murmur and then a rush of breath as Shizuo wakes up, and Izaya meets his eyes, unhesitant. Shizuo’s eyes are soft with sleep, and Izaya basks in their warm brown gaze.

Shizuo’s lips quirk into a crescent grin. “Good morning,” he says, whispering like it’s a secret.

“Morning,” Izaya says back, licking his lips. His mouth tastes sticky and gross, but then Shizuo is reaching for a water bottle on the nightstand, and he presses it against Izaya’s forehead as if he can read Izaya’s mind. Izaya takes the bottle in fingers clumsy with sleep and pops the cap off to sip at it, still lying down and sure he looks stupid as he tries not to spill. Shizuo chuckles at him, but when Izaya has had his fill of the water, he takes the bottle away and does the same thing, and—yeah. He looks pretty stupid. Izaya finds that he really doesn’t mind.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says, capping the bottle at a weird angle and letting it fall half-empty beside the pillow even though it spills a little. “I…” Shizuo looks rueful, maybe even a little bit guilty. “Izaya, do you want to start over?” he asks, and Izaya must make a weird face because, well, it is kind of a weird question to ask, and Shizuo goes on, “I mean, we kind of just fell into bed together pretty quickly, and I—maybe I was too forward. I’m sorry if I hurt you.” His voice is rough on sincerity.

Izaya hardly hears any of it. Do you want to start over? He thinks, repeats it in his head. He’s unsure of why the thought makes him feel the creeping edge of doubt, of hurt, weight heavy in his chest. “Do I want to start over? Like, back to high school? Back to our first meeting?”

Shizuo frowns. “What—no, I didn’t mean it like that, but now that you…” Shizuo trails off, studies Izaya with eyes so dark and intense that Izaya thinks maybe Shizuo will start a fight right here and right now. He must read some of the wariness in the hard set of Izaya’s jaw, because his whole expression softens as he strokes a hand through Izaya’s hair. “Things could’ve gone differently,” Shizuo says, careful. “I guess.”

Izaya bites his lip. “Do you want to go back?”

Shizuo sighs. “No. I don’t know. What’s the point of talking about this? It’s not like we can go back and get it right the first time.”

Izaya is surprised by how much the little echo of hurt renews, his doubt and uncertainty swirling thick in his veins. “Would you go back and do things differently if you could?”

Shizuo’s brow furrows, and he looks strangely concerned. “Izaya, I’ll be honest: I think you’re looking for a right answer here, and I’m not sure what it is.”

“Why would you go back?” Izaya asks. “What would ‘getting it right’ look like, Shizuo? Doing it over without all the madness, the violence, the destruction?” Izaya looks around the room at the pictures on the walls and thinks about those clusters filled with pictures of him. He thinks about a room in a house that must exist somewhere, even if Izaya has never seen it, and it’s Shizuo’s room from childhood. He thinks about the two of them falling in love instead of hate at 15, of how many months of careful kisses they would’ve waited before taking that last leap. How they would have been clumsy and terrified with it, the heady power of sex stealing them away into the world of adulthood.

And then Izaya thinks about how it actually was. How his memories of last night correspond almost perfectly with his image of them as high school lovers, their ages notwithstanding. There’s something sweet in how long they made each other wait. How long it took them before they were finally ready.

“No,” Shizuo says, his expression set like he’s suddenly sure. “No, Izaya. We don’t need to go back and get it right the first time.”

Izaya feels his heart beating wild against the inside of his ribs. “Right. Because we already did.”

Shizuo makes a hum of approval. It rumbles out of his throat low and purring, and Izaya, for some reason, feels himself start to blush. Shizuo sees the red on his cheeks and smiles. “You’re being very sentimental for an early Sunday morning.”

“I’m being philosophical. Musing on life and choices,” Izaya retorts. “And we didn’t just fall into bed, Shizu-chan. It took you ten years to seduce me. No wonder you don’t have a girlfriend.”

Shizuo grins madly and leans forward to kiss him. Izaya kisses back, frantic and so in love.

They break apart and Shizuo is still grinning, the corners of his mouth gone soft and wistful. “I guess we can start making up for lost time, then,” he says. But he takes one look at Izaya’s sad smile and shakes his head. “No, that’s not what I meant. It wasn’t lost. We made use of every second of it.”

“Yeah, sure, Shizu-chan. But now you’re the one not making use of time, so I suggest you—”

Shizuo laughs and presses his lips hard against Izaya’s. He breaks away and grins, mouth stretching into a boxy smile that Izaya has never seen before, Shizuo’s eyes all squinty and his nose all scrunched, and Izaya thinks, seeing that smile was worth ten years of my time.

He’s accidentally said it out loud, and Shizuo’s smile turns wicked.

“That’s very philosophical of you, Izaya-kun,” he says.

Izaya splutters and lets himself be kissed again.


End file.
